


that and this & these and those

by sidnihoudini



Category: South Park RPF
Genre: 1990s, College, Drinking, Fist Fights, Folie a Deux, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Slurs, Unsafe Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:02:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24942010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidnihoudini/pseuds/sidnihoudini
Summary: Dear Mom and Dad. It’s five weeks into the new semester, we are two days past the day I was allowed to drop classes without penalty, and I am sitting on Trey’s couch cutting little boys out of construction paper. Sometimes I draw faces, but Trey is better at that. So there I sit, and stick to scissoring. I know you wanted me to go into finance, but instead I just ended up being gay and dumb. Sincerely, your son, Matt.
Relationships: Trey Parker/Matt Stone, Trey Parker/Original Character(s)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 25





	1. that and this

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please enjoy [a picture of Trey](https://66.media.tumblr.com/9e14038392f020db94bc89a00516caed/tumblr_o2cg03uzD61rzgdwvo1_640.jpg) in college. Matt pretty much looked the same as he does now haha.

_the early 90s, somewhere in Colorado_

*

It’s been a long, hard, bitch of a week.

All the fucking around Matt did through the first half of this semester has thoroughly, unpleasantly come back to screw him in the ass. One group project, three final exams, a massive research paper, and what does he have to show for it? A bunch of three-point trees cut out of green and white construction paper.

He and Trey started working on this short - _PAID_ \- project a couple of days ago. It’s due on November 1st, and pays exactly $700 more than Matt’s school assignments are going to.

“What the fuck else am I supposed to do?” Matt complains, following Eric into the bar, past the bank of peanut machines and pay phones. “Pay rent with my ass?”

Eric snorts. “Maybe Trey’s.”

“Fuck you.” Matt kicks at the back of Eric’s heels as they walk through the belly of the bar; the setting, a typical Friday night, with lots of college girls in sparkly Playboy tops and chains. “I could get cash for ass.”

They find an empty table in the back, big enough for three or four people. Eric throws his jacket over one stool, and Matt slides around the back of the table to another. A habit of always being the skinniest guy in the room.

“Hey, dollar beers,” Eric says, flipping the sticky menu around. Matt digs through his pockets and earmarks a wrinkly twenty for the night. “Should we wait for Mary?”

Matt makes a face. If he wrote a book, he’d name it _Waiting for Trey_ , and the cover would be Matt sticking both middle fingers up in the air. Obviously he would dedicate the first page to his best friend. _Dearest Trey. Fuck you. Sincerely yours, Matty. XOXO._

“He can figure it out when he gets here,” Matt decides. He picks up the one-page specials menu -- beers, burgers, and shots -- sticks his pinky finger out, and finishes with a diplomatic, “Whenever that may be.”

When he looks up again, he realizes Eric is laughing at him.

“Your dick hurt?” Eric is, in fact, delighted.

Everyone thinks Trey is so charming and adorable, but Matt is the one dealing with his fucking dumbass failure to thrive every day. He frowns, grumpy about it, and grumbles back, “No, my dick doesn’t fucking hurt.”

“Seems a little ouchie to me,” Eric continues. Matt stares back, and tries to convey how deeply unimpressed he is with just his eyes. Eric screws up his face and squeezes out a high-pitched, “Ow, my tiny weenie!” right as the waitress appears.

Matt cracks up laughing.

“Umm… do you guys… did you want anything?” the waitress asks, awkwardly looking between them. Matt actually recognizes her from his calc class. “We have dollar beers tonight… so...”

The way Eric’s ears slowly go devil-ass red _tickles_ Matt. He cackles the whole way through ordering his beers and food. When the waitress leaves, Matt leans back against the wall, laughs some more, and shuts up about Trey.

*

Their food is half gone by the time Trey rolls in.

“Yo!” Eric yells over the music, waving one arm in the air. 

Matt can tell the second Trey spots them, because his face lights up like he just got plugged back into the grid. The bar is pretty dark, but Matty can see those blue eyes and his neon green pom-pom beanie from here.

Then he takes another bite of his burger and realizes Trey’s here with someone.

“Oh, fuck.” Eric starts laughing and chokes on his drink. “What’s up?”

Trey walks up to the edge of the table, a brunette twunk at his shoulder.

“Dudes,” he greets, unzipping his big orange parka. Matt’s done with his food. He tosses the last bite of his burger back onto the plate. “This is Jason. Jason, these are my two buddies, Matt and Eric. Did you order without me?!”

“Yeah we fucking ordered without you,” Eric volleys back. He starts shuffling down, making room for Jason as they all bumble around the table, empty beer bottles clinking together. “We’ve been here for an hour. Catch up, Barbara.”

Trey sits across from Matt, and Jason sits beside Trey.

“Eric told the waitress he has a tiny weenie,” Matt announces, just for the sake of starting conversation.

*

 _DUDE_ , Trey mouths across the table. It’s been 20 minutes.

Matt stops drinking his beer. _WHAT?_

Trey mimes a blowjob and then grins. Matt kicks him directly in the shin under the table, and offers a sweet smile over to Jason when Trey flinches and laughs. Jason goes back to talking to Eric, and Trey takes the opportunity to draw an angel’s halo around his head with one finger. Upon completion of the circle, he presses both hands to his chin and gives Matt a cherubic smile.

Keeping it simple, Matt offers a double fuck-you to Trey from beyond the edge of his side of the table. In return, Trey squirms around on his stool and pretends to sit on Matt’s middle fingers with an expression of relief on his face.

Matt cracks up laughing, which efficiently derails Jason and Eric’s conversation.

“Don’t mind them,” Eric says, voice flat. “Just a couple of idiots who were separated at birth.”

Still laughing, Matt rolls his eyes and counters with a, “Whatever, dude.”

Eric gives the guys Trey dates way too much credit. Matt stopped getting involved two years ago, when Trey spent a semester briefly engaged to a drug dealer. Trey wasn’t known by anyone for making the best choices, but that one in particular had rocketed “stability” right out into outer space, dropped it off on Pluto, and concluded with Trey addicted to cocaine. Uppers were alright for finishing off papers, but as far as Matt was concerned, coke was for white party girls and had no business being up his best friend’s nose.

“I need a cigarette,” Jason announces, reaching for his jacket.

Trey starts standing up too. He gives Matt a weird look for not doing the same.

“What?” Matt raises his eyebrows, and then Trey jerks his up, too. _We’re going for a smoke. I don’t want to go for a smoke. Why the fuck not, you always smoke! I don’t fucking feel like fucking smoking right now, alright? Well excuse me for asking, dick bag, jesus._ Matt holds his beer up. “I’m drinking.”

Truthfully, Matt doesn’t want to stand around in the snow while Trey makes eyes at his lay.

“Whatever dude,” Trey snorts. He turns around to head for the smoker’s pit, Jason right behind him.

Eric gives Matt a look. 

“You’re such a dick sometimes,” he says, without malice, and it sticks like a barb in Matt’s paw. 

*

So he and Trey have a complicated friendship, but not in any way Matt wants to talk about.

“Yo, let’s walk to 7-11,” Eric announces, coming back from the bathroom. He wipes his wet hands over Trey’s boobs and laughs, ducking a punch.

Matt starts tugging his jacket up off the stool, trying to untangle it without losing anything from his pockets. “Maybe we can buy 12 taquitos and watch Trey puke them into the snow again.”

“You guys suck,” Trey laughs, still in a slap fight with Eric on their side of the table. “I didn’t eat all 12.”

Jason smiles and jokes, “11.”

“Yes! Thank you,” Eric laughs. He’s out of breath as he dodges a smack and jabs his arm out awkwardly. His elbow locks and he barely hits Trey’s tit. “We all know you’re a fat kid inside.”

“Whatever dude I’m going home.”

Matt laughs and zips his jacket up. He’s a little tipsy and it’s fun to watch Trey jiggle around in low lighting. 

The walk to 7-11 is short but cold. Eric takes the lead, then Trey and Jason follow, and Matt brings up the rear. He holds his hands up against his mouth and tries to warm them up, nose cold and red. 

“What the fuck do you even need,” Trey crabs, trudging along in the snow, almost sliding on a slippery patch because he’s wearing Vans. “We could be drinking right now.”

Eric shouts, “I want snacks!”

“Snacky cakes,” Trey calls back in the same voice.

At 7-11, Eric goes in without waiting for anyone else to follow. The doors slide and the bells ding, and he’s gone, disappeared into the bright light. Matt loiters outside, smoking a cigarette. He’s surprised when Jason follows Eric in and leaves Trey outside.

“Hey.” Trey grins in his direction and somewhere, an electrical grid blows up.

Matt sticks his cigarette in his mouth, raises his eyebrows, and holds both of his hands out, palms down.

Trey laughs and steps forward, a little drunk. He holds his hands out, palms up, the backs of his hands hovering over Matt’s, and makes hard eye contact.

“Oh, it’s on, it’s-” he starts, and before he even finishes what he’s saying, Matt moves his hands quickly, snapping them to the sides and around so he can slap Trey’s palms. He cracks up as Trey’s expression gets big and dramatic. “Hey! No fair! Fuck you!”

Matt gets a little competitive about hand slap. “Totally fair, dude. Come on.” He puts his hands back out, taking the bottom position this time. “1, 2-”

He starts cackling again when he gets in a second win and gives Trey’s hands a short, quick slap.

“For god’s sake,” Trey complains, really in it to win it now. He widens his stance, bows his head, and knots his eyebrows. Matt laughs at the top of his head. “Come on!”

Matt grins and re-positions his hands. “You count this time.”

“Yeah I fuckin’ will.” Trey gives him a look. “1, 2, 3.”

This time Matt gets the win fair and square. Trey swears and shakes both hands out as they separate, Matt the undeniable victor.

“Suck it bitch,” Matt says, picking up the front of his shirt. Trey flicks the end of his cigarette at him, and it actually does catch Matt on the skin. He laughs and brushes the ash away, saying, “Ow,” as Eric and Jason come out of the 7-11.

Eric staggers to a stop at the curb and pauses to awkwardly, yet tenderly, light his cigarette.

“Here you go,” Jason says to Trey, handing him a shitty roller hot dog. “Eric said you liked these.”

Cackling, Matt ducks Trey’s smack as he says, “Trey likes anything shaped like a dick.”

“He does,” Eric agrees from the distance.

Jason laughs and says, “Good to know,” before adding, “Our cab should be here soon.”

Guess that leaves Matt to take care of Eric alone.

“Come on, little buddy,” he calls, holding one lanky arm out. “Let’s get.”

Eric shuffles over, ever drunker. Trey says, “We can drop you guys off or something.”

“Nah.” Matt gets another cigarette out. “We’re walking.”

Waving the two of them off, Matt readjusts his grip on the shoulder of Eric’s jacket, and tries to direct him down the road.

*

Matt gets back to Trey’s an hour later.

Now that he’s sobering up, he’s feeling a little grumpy, and he grumbles to himself under his breath as he takes his jacket and hat off. It feels like he’s always here alone lately, which sucks. Trey’s apartment has almost no furniture in it, and what they do have came from dumpster diving before the weather got all shitty.

Matt really hates it sometimes. Sucky things are only fun when Trey is around.

“Fuck you,” he tells the coffee table.

He kicks his boots off in front of the TV, and turns the cable box on. All their construction paper is all cut up and spread everywhere. The coffee table that they made with pieces of construction wood and milk crates has been their build station - and as long as you don’t bang into it and knock everything around, it’s okay.

Matt sits down in the middle of their shitty, sunken couch. Trey’s dirty clothes are everywhere. Grimacing, Matt leans forward and gingerly tugs last night’s pizza box closer with one finger. It smells alright. He takes a slice out and sticks it in his mouth, then kicks Trey’s stupid dirty jeans and UC sweatshirt away.

He puts it on MTV, and zones out to Celebrity Deathmatch.

*

Matt wakes up a few hours later, hungover.

“Ugh,” he manages, still propped up on the couch with both arms folded across his chest. The sun is bright white and blasting through the windows behind the TV, which sucks. He grimaces dramatically. “Jesus, dude.”

From the kitchen, Trey laughs and says, “Morning, Matty.”

“Fuck you.” Matt holds up one hand to block the sun, and rubs his face with the other. In a sense, he’s a morning person. He could be the guy who wakes up early to make coffee and fuck their significant other in the shower. But that version of himself feels far away when he’s all hunched and hungover on the couch. “I can’t believe I didn’t wake up when you came in.”

Trey laughs. “You were totally snoring.”

“Ugh, my head.” It’s a struggle to sit upright - Matt’s brains swim in his skull, and his mouth waters. He repositions himself and burps loudly. “Fuck.”

On the other side of the suite, Trey laughs some more. He looks disheveled, as usual, standing at the shitty hip high formica counter in baggy jeans and a short, square Broncos t-shirt. He went to Super Clips a couple days ago so his hair is too short and sticks out at the crown of his head.

“You going to class this morning?” Trey asks. 

It looks like he’s mixing instant coffee grounds into a mug of hot water.

“No,” Matt answers. He pauses to yawn, and then sighs, takes his glasses off, and rubs both hands over his tired face. “Let’s work on this video.”

Trey opens the cupboard and says, “I can make you a coffee.”

Ooo. That perks Matt right up. He raises his eyebrows, and looks at Trey over the back of the couch with interest. Trey smiles right at him again, all one million watts of it.

Matt still doesn’t know exactly when he realized he had a crush on Trey.

“Sleeping on a couch sucks.” Sometimes the only thing he can do is bitch about things that are lame. “Dude. We need real beds.”

Trey says, “We could get another air mattress.”

“Yeah.” Matt rallies himself, and gets up off the couch. “Gimme that coffee. Hey!” He realizes Trey has been secretly eating a toaster strudel. “Give me one!”

Panicking, Trey shoves the entire thing into his mouth and burbles, “No way!”

“Ugh, you dick.” Matt frowns as he picks up his coffee and looks at Trey’s mouth and the delicious toaster strudel chewed within. “I totally would have shared with you, man.”

Even though Trey’s mouth is full, he bitches, “You ate all the pizza!”

“Doesn’t count,” Matt counters. He snakes some icing from the empty package sitting on the counter. “Man. I am so close to taking that out of your mouth and eating it anyway.”

Trey cackles with an open mouth, and bits of food shoot everywhere. 

“Delicious,” he says.

He opens his mouth so Matt can see his chewed up mouthful, which is disgusting.

But also… Matt still would.

“You’re such a pig,” he complains, kicking Trey away. “Ugh. Dude!”

Trey swallows and counters, “Dick pig.”

“Well yeah, that goes without saying.” When Matt kicks at his legs again, Trey laughs and tries to grab his sock. On a normal day, Matt could definitely take Trey in a foot fight; hungover, he has to steady himself against the counter. “Fuck!”

They dick around for a few minutes, and then Trey says, “So this stupid thing.”

“Yeah that about sums it up.” Matt follows him back over to the couch. “We definitely need more electrical tape.”

Everything is exactly where it was before Matt and Eric left for the bar last night. The plan was to start shooting this week, but they haven’t even cut everything out of paper yet. They’ve got at least two more nights of that. And Trey needs to finish the script.

Hopefully Eric can help them build some kind of camera rig.

“We got a lot of work to do, man,” Matt finally says.

Trey nods, but he’s already focused on the character pieces scrambled up on the coffee table. A light blue pom pom hat, a bright orange parka, red mittens. By the time they’re done this, Matt is never gonna want to see those things again. Trey sits down on the couch, and picks up Matt’s empty pizza box.

“Maybe Jason can help us,” Trey says.

That wouldn’t be Matt’s first suggestion, but he shrugs and stands to the side, twisting a curl coming out of his head. Trey looks up at him.

“What?” Matt asks.

They stare at each other. Trey doesn’t say anything, but he’s got that look on his face that has Matt getting ready for a fight.

“Nothing, dude.” Trey doesn’t take the bait. He sighs. “Come on, let’s do this shit.”

There’s nothing Matt wants less right now than to get into a hungover argument with Trey about whatever. He sits down on the couch and tries to stop being prickly. If anyone else was here, Matt knows he wouldn’t have the self control.

Trey seems to pick up on that.

“EHY!” he shouts, in one of the voices they’ve been using for the kids.

It makes Matt laugh, and the mood gets a little less tense. 

*

They spend the afternoon working on the video.

It’s easy. Trey takes up Matt’s space. He pisses him off. He makes him laugh. 

The living room is better when Trey is in it.

*

So, Matt’s degree has officially taken a backseat to their video.

He thinks about writing his parents a letter.

_Dear Mom and Dad. It’s five weeks into the new semester, we are two days past the day I was allowed to drop classes without penalty, and I am sitting on Trey’s couch cutting little boys out of construction paper. Sometimes I draw faces, but Trey is better at that. So there I sit, and stick to scissoring. I know you wanted me to go into finance, but instead I just ended up being gay and dumb. Sincerely, your son, Matt._

“Man, when you spend all day cutting shit out of paper, it sure does give you a lot of time to think about how you’re getting totally butt-fucked at the same place that’s raping away all your money,” Matt says, angling his scissors.

It’s later that night, and Trey has made good on his threat to invite Jason over.

“Maybe you should try going to class,” Eric suggests.

“Shut up Eric,” he says back.

Fuck college. At least he and Trey have solidarity in their tanking GPAs.

Trey laughs from across the room, where he’s hunched over their “set.” If they can get everything cut and built out tonight, they should be able to start the stop motion tomorrow, so Trey has taken it upon himself to liberate himself from the Sharpies and scissors, and instead start putting the background together.

“So then you take the template Trey made, and you trace it onto the paper,” Eric is telling Jason, painstakingly instructing him through their process. “Make sure you do it with pencil, otherwise you can see the lines, and that’s no good.”

Jason is obviously being nice when he says, “Got it,” but Matt can’t help himself. He’s never been one to bottle up his little remarks.

“Yeah, it’s not exactly rocket science,” he cracks.

He doesn’t look up from what he’s doing, but he can sense Jason looks at him. Trey, on the other hand, is totally zoned out and in his own little world. He doesn’t even laugh at Matt’s joke.

Eric ignores him too. “Once you have the lines down, you can cut it out with scissors.”

“Alright,” Jason says.

On TV, Pop-Up Video rolls into a shitty Lisa Loeb song. Matt drains the neck of his beer and looks down at his work station. His back hurts and he has a hard nub on one finger from cutting all day, but he’s got a good stack going. Brown Jesus mustaches, white Santa beards. Tiny white teeth that are going to suck to glue into mouths.

“How did you guys come up with this, anyways?” Jason asks.

Matt looks over to where he and Eric are sitting on the couch. They’re shoulder to shoulder, brand new best friends.

“Trey made the voices and Matt made them assholes,” Eric says.

From his corner, Trey cackles.

“We had a film class that was really, really boring.” Matt sits back on his stool and lets his shoulders hunch, one hand going up to play with his hair. He doesn’t really want to make conversation with Jason, but he likes talking about Trey. “The teacher also really fucking hated us.”

As Matt talks, he looks at the back of Jason’s head. Sometimes when Matt is walking down the street, he’ll think about cars crashing. Sometimes when Matt is jerking off, he’ll think about his parents having sex. And right now, staring at the back of Jason’s head, Matt thinks about what Trey’s fingers would look like pulling on his hair.

“Sounds like a mean teacher,” Jason says.

Matt snorts. “No, we were total dickheads. We barely made it through that class.”

“I did better than Matt,” Trey adds.

Matt narrows his eyes over at Trey. “No you didn’t.”

“Yeah I did, dude! I kissed that guy’s shoes.” Trey takes the opportunity to sip on his beer, and step away from the storyboard. “I ate dick on that one big time. That guy was a total homophobe, too.”

Laughing, Matt says, “Turning down head doesn’t make him homophobic.”

“Gross. I wouldn’t suck that guy’s balls for a blank cheque,” Trey replies, and they look at each other and laugh, and suddenly Matt realizes they’ve derailed themselves into their own little world. “I’m no dad fucker.”

For some reason Matt suddenly feels self-conscious in front of Jason, so he tries to get the conversation back on track.

“Anyway. It was so boring, we would just sit there and crack jokes all day,” he says. He loved that class. He and Trey would sit in the back row, totally crushed together in the shitty, tiny lecture chairs, and laugh the whole time. “Then we started drawing this little fat kid, and that made it way funnier.”

Trey agrees with him, echoing, “Way, way funnier.”

When Matt looks back over again, Trey has moved from where the shot is set up in the corner of the room, to the couch where Eric and Jason are sitting. He props his ass against the back of the couch and smiles down at Jason. Matt looks away when he lifts one hand and moves it to-

“And now we’re sitting here cutting shit out of paper,” Matt concludes, draining his beer, and pointedly looking up at the ceiling.

The conversation hits a lull; Eric climbs out the window to smoke on the roof, and Trey and Jason have their own quiet conversation where they’re still sitting and touching each other on the couch.

Matt goes back to his stool, puts his head down, and gets to work.

*

Jason has been offering up soft balls for Matt all night.

Things like, “Oh, I’ve heard that album was really good!” and, “I haven’t been there yet, but I would totally check it out.” Pleasant small-talk. He doesn’t ask for any of Matt’s red-tape opinions, he steers clear of politics and religion, and when Matt disagrees with him - bluntly - he doesn’t push back. He takes care to avoid Matt’s buttons.

But Matt can’t let him have one single thing. And the fact that Jason is obviously avoiding pushing Matt’s buttons pushes Matt’s buttons.

“No, it was dumb.”

“Oh I heard that - and they were wrong. Total fags.”

“I hated that book.”

Every time Jason lobs one out, Matt steps to the side, and lets it hit the cage.

Finally, Trey calls him out on it.

“Dude!” he’s laughing, kind of, but his eyes are wild and blue. “You’re being a dick.”

Matt’s a little drunk, so that’s totally possible. “I’m making conversation, man.”

“Well get better at it,” Trey says pointedly. 

“Dude.” Matt turns to the couch for moral support, but Eric has his back turned to them, and isn’t paying attention. But Jason is watching. He turns back to Trey. “Don’t say shit to me.”

Trey is still on that knife edge of entertained and annoyed. He raises his eyebrows and shoots back, “I’ll say whatever I want to you!”

“Yeah, well.” Matt doesn’t know how to respond, so he stands there with his hands on his hips and scowls. “Guess who’s gonna be spending their birthday alone.”

Not Trey. They got tickets to the Pixies, and threat or not, Matt is going.

“I’ll be there, buddy, no matter what,” Eric says warmly from the couch.

Trey kicks Matt’s ankle, and Matt instantly straightens up. Foot fight.

“Whatever dude.” Trey is laughing and trying to avoid Matt’s socked toes, which Matt is expertly jabbing at his feet. “Get fucked, and I’ll see you later.”

Matt bounces to avoid Trey’s whole foot coming at him. “You get fucked!”

“Get fucked first,” Trey bitches back, already out of breath.

They both smoke a lot but at least Matt takes the stairs sometimes. He counters, “Suck my dick, dude.”

Matt is the one who makes non-foot contact first. He bounces too close on one foot and has to grab onto Trey’s shoulder before he falls over.

Trey rolls back against him and tries to throw them both off balance. “Eat my asshole!”

“Last year was nuts,” Eric says from the couch, totally ignoring their fight. “Trey, remember how that guy bought you all those shots?”

Now Matt has him in a headlock. Trey tries to pull Matt’s forearm away from where it’s wrapped around his throat, but Matt is way stronger.

“Nope,” he squeezes out. Matt rubs his socked foot all over Trey’s calves.

They both laugh, out of breath and struggling. Matt loosens his arms a bit, but leaves one leg wrapped around Trey’s knees. Then he awkwardly pushes his glasses all the way back up his nose, and digs his chin into the dip of Trey’s shoulder to get him to stop squirming.

“Get fucked,” he says definitively. “I win.”

He lets go and Trey turns around to jab him in the pec.

“Pigfucker.”

Matt laughs.

*

“Hey.”

Fuck.

Matt hesitates in the bathroom doorway. How long was he in there for? Trey and Eric were in the middle of rigging the camera up a couple minutes ago, and now Jason is the only one left in the apartment. He’s standing in front of the microwave heating up a pack of Mr. Noodles.

“Oh, hey man.” Matt says belatedly. “Where did everybody go?”

Jason gestures over to the window. “They needed a break.”

“Ah.” Matt eyes the window and weighs his options. The microwave still has two minutes left on it, and he doesn’t know if he can last that long. He looks back Jason, who is staring at him, and says, “Just gonna grab another beer.”

When they’re alone, it’s really obvious the only thing they have in common is Trey. 

Matt cracks the fridge door open, and has a bottle by its neck when Jason says, “I know you and Trey are like… super close.”

Fuck. Matt grimaces into the interior light.

“I mean, yeah.” There’s not really much to say. “We are.”

He closes the fridge door, and takes the lighter out of his pocket to snap the bottle cap off.

“Trey talks about you all the time,” Jason continues.

Matt laughs. “Other than Eric, I’m the only person Trey knows.”

“Yeah.” Jason gives him a serious look. “I just wanted to tell you that, like. I get it.”

One of Matt’s eyebrows creeps up, and he gives Jason a look. “You get it?”

“Trey’s a really awesome guy,” Jason says earnestly.

Matt flips his bottle cap into the sink and snorts, “We definitely aren’t talking about the same person.”

“I just wanted to make sure you-”

Panic flares in Matt’s gut. He quickly cuts Jason off by saying, “We don’t have to do this.”

He doesn’t want to hear this fag’s armchair opinion on he and Trey’s friendship.

Jason looks like he’s going to say something else anyways, but across the room, the window frame squeaks open, and one of Eric’s legs dangles through.

“Let’s get fuckin’ drunk,” Trey announces behind him, trying to hurry Eric through the window. “Me and my little buddy.”

Beside Jason, the microwave beeps, out of time.

*

They finish around 2AM.

Jason goes home, and Trey leaves with him.

*

On Monday, Matt is waiting around for his order at the UC coffee shop.

He props himself up with one elbow against the pick-up counter. The weekend was a hazy, foggy blur. Matt is pretty sure he hasn’t been fully asleep or completely awake at any time over the last 48 hours; at one point, Trey took a nap in the bathroom.

It was worth it, though. They’re almost halfway done with the stop motion shots, which means they’ll be able to go to the Pixies show guilt-free.

That also means Matt can afford to attend class today.

He’s totally zoning out and thinking about how the guy at the order counter kind of looks like Trey when someone says, “Hey.”

“Oh.” Matt immediately shuffles around, taking a step away from the counter that houses all the sugar and napkins and coffee lids. He stops studying alternate universe Trey’s profile, and says over his shoulder, “Sorry, dude.”

He lets the guy get at the cream, but the guy just says, “You weren’t in my way.”

“Alright,” Matt shrugs. 

He sticks his hands in his jacket pockets and edges back towards the counter. He should be next.

The guy clears his throat then admits, “I just wanted to say. Uh. Broncos rule.”

“Huh?” Matt has no idea what he’s talking about until he points at Matt’s chest.

Then the guy says, “I think I have the same shirt.”

“Oh, this isn’t actually my shirt.” It’s Trey’s, vintage, and it says _1986 AFC CHAMPIONS_ in white, blocky text above the Broncos logo. The only reason Matt’s wearing it is because he was running late for class and slept without a shirt on. “I found it on the floor.”

Matt’s drink is ready. The barista slides it across the counter, and calls, “MATT.”

He sticks his mittens under one armpit and snags his coffee, then gives the guy a nod, one that indicates _this conversation has concluded, and I will continue on with my day with no further thought to this moment._

Matt is all the way outside when he hears, “Hey! Matt.”

“Dude.” Matt turns around, ready for a fight, but the guy is holding both hands up.

He keeps some distance between them, but goes on to say, “Listen, I just wanted to ask. Uh, do you wanna get a beer this weekend?”

It takes Matt a second, but it clicks.

“Man,” he snorts. “That is some brave shit for Colorado.”

The guy gives him a crooked smile. “Well?”

For one moment, Matt considers it. He thinks about stringing this coffee guy along, and bringing him to the bar to meet Eric and Trey. Renting movies, going out for a beer, watching a Broncos game on TV and laughing about the day they met. Dating.

“I’m sorry.” Matt wrinkles his nose. He did think about it, but, “It’s, well. It’s complicated.”

The crooked smile fades into a small, even one.

“Well, had to try.” He sticks his hands in his pockets and takes a step back, in the direction of the coffee shop. “See you around.”

Matt stands there with his coffee and his mittens, and watches him leave.

“Yeah,” he says, squinting. “Catch you later.”

*

Matt goes right to his finance class, and then walks home.

“Hey man.” He kicks the front door closed.

Trey is sitting on the arm of the couch. He wasn’t home when Matt left, but now here’s all six feet of him, wearing a pair of boxers and a shitty old t-shirt that says _On Break!... On The Colorado Rim_ above three brown, beach-themed teddy bears. He looks up as Matt comes through the door, away from the pad of legal paper on his knee.

“Hey,” Trey greets, pen end on his bottom lip.

Grimacing, Matt peels out of his jacket and says, “It’s fucking cold out there, dude.”

“Did you go to class?” Trey asks.

Matt nods and walks around the couch. “Yeah.” And he wasn’t going to say anything, he never really tells Trey about this stuff, but he loses the reigns and blurts, “Some Broncos butt buddy asked me out on a date.”

“What?” Trey’s attention snaps to Matt, one eyebrow popping up. “Like, now?”

Snorting, Matt says, “Before class.”

Honestly he’s kind of offended that Trey’s acting all surprised. Colorado isn’t exactly the best place to cruise for ass, but Matt makes do.

“Cool,” Trey says after a minute. He’s still staring. “Broncos rule.” They’re looking at each other, and Matt clocks the exact moment Trey loses control, too. “So when are you going out?”

Matt flops into the opposite end of the couch. “Oh, no. Not my type.”

Maybe the other guy who was at the order counter.

Trey snorts and goes back to looking at his notes, pen balanced between his pointer and middle fingers. Crooked knuckles, piano hands. “No one is your type.”

“No, Trey,” Matt sighs, grabbing the closest thing, which is the TV Guide. He lazily throws it over at Trey, and is satisfied by the way it flies through the air and hits his knee spine first. “I just have standards.”

Trey kicks the TV Guide away and snorts again, then counters, “Whatever, dude. I like to get my ass ate.”

“That’s not an exclusive club, man.” 

His stomach gets all tight and gnarly when Trey says that, intrusive thoughts spilling out of the pipes so quickly Matt can’t catch all of them in his hands. Trey in the kitchen, elbows on the counter and face buried in his arms with his pants around his knees. Trey bent over the couch. Trey flat on his back with his legs over Matt’s shoulders.

“Whatever.” Trey stares down at his script pointedly.

For a split second, it feels like Trey is going to add something. Like he’s going to call Matt out, and finally say it. _Why can’t you try to be happy the same way I try to be happy?_

“Anyway,” Matt says, scratching his ear. “You wanna get pizza or something?”

Trey hesitates but then agrees, “Yeah, I could eat.”

“Sweet. Get off your ass, fat boy,” Matt announces, digging himself back out of the couch to grab the cordless, and phone in their order.

*

On Friday night, Matt walks through the door with dinner, beer, and ecstasy.

“You just swallow it?” Trey asks. The Pixies tickets sit behind them on the counter.

Matt holds out the two little yellow smiley faces in his palm. “Pretty much.”

“Alright, well.” Trey picks one up, and they cheers pills. “Bottoms up.”

Eric - sweet, patient, little buddy Eric - has agreed to babysit them for the night in return for a free ticket to the show. It seemed like a pretty sweet deal, so Matt and Trey split the cost. Jason didn’t get one, because he wasn’t around at the time.

Sucks to be him.

“Let’s watch Oklahoma and wait for this to kick in,” Trey says.

*

Matt hasn’t gone to a show this fucked up in years.

He rolls by himself in the pit, because Trey hates moshing wasted. Even though Matt is alone, he feels connected - the music, the lights, the crowd. Everything is distorted; it’s too loud, it’s too warm, and Matt loves it.

Every time he bumps into someone, electricity goes zinging up his arm and out into outer space.

He waits for _Debaser_ to end before he goes looking for beer. Then Matt squirms through the crowd shoulder first, edging through the densest areas where people are packed closest. He finds Eric standing along the fringe of the crowd, sipping on a beer.

What a good second best friend. He’s doing an awesome job of not losing Matt’s wallet.

Matt waves, and then gets really close to Eric’s ear.

“MONEY,” he demands first. Eric gives him his wallet. Then Matt yells, “TREY.”

Maslow’s hierarchy in two words.

Even though Matt is fucked up, he could pick Trey’s head out of any crowd. Once Eric points him in the right direction, Matt spots him immediately. He’s dancing with a couple of straight girls over in a loose pocket near the back of the crowd.

Matt pats Eric’s shoulder - THANKS BUDDY - and moves through the crowd to Trey.

He breaks through on the other side, walks right up to Trey, and wraps a long arm around his shoulders.

“BEER?” he yells into the shell of his ear, ignoring everyone else.

Trey doesn’t stop bouncing around. He nods and yells back, “HELL YEAH.”

Order taken, Matt lets go, and continues on his route to the bar. Even though drinks are like $5 a thing when there’s a band playing, he gets two more beers. And then he finds Trey exactly where he left him.

He’s hunched over, trying to make himself shorter. He has his ear tilted down towards one of the girls so they can hear each other.

“NO,” he’s laughing. Matt can’t hear him, but it’s pretty obvious what his mouth is saying. The girl yells something else in his ear, and he cracks up and shakes his head wildly and mouths, “NOOO,” again, screwing up his face this time. Then he grins and holds his arm out so she can spin underneath it.

Matt approaches cautiously. Trey kiki-ing with girls was always bad.

“TREY,” Matt yells, tapping the beer against his shoulder.

The girl turns around to face him. She says something, but Matt doesn’t know her well enough to be able to figure out what she’s saying. She’s _drunk_ drunk, too, acting all attitude-y and thinking she’s cute as she gets in close to Matt and repeats whatever she said earlier.

“WHAT?” Matt yells back, knotting his eyebrows. He squints between Trey and the girl.

She grabs his shoulder and tugs him down. “I SAID IT’S-” and then the bass line hits, and drowns her out.

Now Trey is dancing with the other one. Matt grimaces down at her, and then over at him, trying to figure out what the fuck is going on. Trey is totally zoned out, he’s dancing with her friend and drinking the beer Matt bought and having a gay old time. Matt looks back at the girl, with her sweaty black makeup and bangs stuck to her forehead.

“WHAT?” he tries one last time.

She gives up. “NEVERMIND,” she yells, which Matt figures out.

“Whatever,” Matt grumbles to himself. It sounds loud in his head, but disappears into the chorus of _Here Comes Your Man._

He leaves Trey to his straight girls and makes his way back to Eric, who is still diligently standing in the last spot Matt saw him. He’s been nursing the same beer since they got here over an hour ago.

“THANKS,” Matt yells, feeling a little frustrated still. He gives Eric his wallet.

Eric takes it with a genuine smile. 

He says, “No problem, buddy,” and Matt has no problem figuring that out.

Now he feels a little awkward, so instead of diving right back in, Matt wanders around the edge of the crowd for the rest of the song. He drinks his beer and tries not to be a total bitch to everyone who crosses his path.

*

Matt’s memory gets hazy after that beer.

He knows they left the bar. After the show, he found Eric, and then Eric helped him find Trey, who was in the line for the bathroom. 

Then they stood around outside in the snow while Eric smoked a cigarette. He and Trey tried to play slap hands, but they kept stopping to argue, and Matt kept getting weirded out every time he realized they were just holding hands and bitching at each other about the rules.

Someone got them in a cab at some point. That’s where Matt is now.

The city speeds by outside the tiny submarine window, and the only thing that makes Matt feel better is the fact that Trey is definitely more fucked up than he is.

Trey keeps lurching forward, eyes closed, swimming. The only thing holding him up is the seatbelt. Matt swings his head too, fully underwater, and looks up front, to where Eric is in the passenger seat chatting with their driver.

Matt’s eyes are closing.

“Matt,” Trey says quietly, getting his attention. Matt’s head tips back. When he overcorrects, his chin drops to hit his chest instead. “Thanks for taking me out for my birthday.”

Trey’s voice is rough from smoking and yelling, and it hits Matt’s dick just right.

“Too bad your boyfriend couldn’t join us,” he says, just to be a cunt.

Trey lurches forward, looks over at Matt, and laughs. “He doesn’t like you.”

“What?” He meets Trey’s red, wiggly-eyed gaze. “Fuck off.”

The car slows down at a stale light.

“You’re kind of mean, dude.”

Matt grimaces. He looks out the window grumpily and says, “Shut up, Trey.”

He doesn’t want to hear it.

“Matt.”

Matt groans. They’re still a couple of minutes away from Trey’s apartment.

“Trey, I said shut up.”

Trey doesn’t. He laughs, and leans sideways, sweaty head knocking into the roundest, strongest part of Matt’s shoulder. Then he looks up at Matt and says, “Matty.”

“I’m not kidding, dude. Leave me alone.” Matt tries to press himself away from Trey and closer to the door. He scowls. “I’m gonna hit you.”

He wouldn’t, but Trey is the only person who can push his buttons like this.

Trey laughs. He shoves himself back up with one elbow and admits, “I think it’s cute.”

For some reason, that hits Matt just right. They were kind of dicking around, and all night it’s just been jokes and teasing - Matt was being prickly or whatever, because Trey got a kick out of it - but he was never genuinely mad.

THAT makes him mad.

“Fuck you, Trey,” he spits.

He says it serious enough that Eric turns around in the front seat to look at them.

Somehow Matt is more drunk now than he was when they first left the bar. It must be the motion, and the conversation he’s having with Trey. It’s pretty obvious to him that Trey kind of thinks he’s still joking around.

“Stop fucking talking, dude,” Matt bitches. “I don’t want to hear it.”

Being called _cute_ is fucking patronizing, and if Trey says it again, Matt will snap.

The car is silent for the last few blocks. Matt rests one hand on the door handle, just in case he needs to throw up.

“Here we go,” the cab driver says awkwardly.

They’re idling at the curb outside of Trey’s shitty apartment building; Matt kicks the door open and gets right out.

“Matt, c’mon man,” Trey calls out. Behind that, Matt hears the muffle of Eric rustling around and talking to the cab driver. “Matt, wait, dude.”

A fresh layer of snow has fallen since they left for the bar. Matt crunches through it, trying to walk a straight line. It’s hard - he’s pretty fucked up, it feels like he’s on the moon - but soon enough he’s pulling the main door to Trey’s building open.

The stairs are another story. Matt stumbles up all four sets of them.

“Fuck,” he bitches to himself, out of breath by the time he gets to Trey’s door.

He leans shoulder first into the wall. The fun of the night is starting to fade into a simultaneous hangover and comedown. Matt groans and rolls over onto his back, so his shoulders are flat against the plaster, and then drops down. He can still see the taxi headlights through the huge hall windows that face the road.

Matt sits beside Trey’s door, below his buzzer, and rests his elbows on his knees.

A few minutes later, the headlights pull away from the curb. And a few minutes after that, Trey comes climbing up the stairs.

“Fuck,” he bitches, winded. When he sees Matt, he says, “Eric left.”

Matt’s fading. He looks up at Trey, and starts climbing back to his feet as Trey stands there, fumbling his house key on his key ring.

It only takes a few minutes to get back into Trey’s dark apartment.

“Are you really mad?” Trey finally asks, because Matt hasn’t said anything since he told Trey to shut the fuck up in the car.

On the floor in front of the couch, Matt continues shoving all the dirty clothes together to make a bed. Trey has been sleeping at Jason’s lately, so the shitty air mattress is all deflated, and everything else is everywhere.

“Yes,” Matt answers. “Leave me alone. Go to sleep.”

Trey stays standing behind the couch, but he doesn’t say anything else.

On the floor, Matt lays down on his shitty clothes bed, heart still pounding. He doesn’t brush his teeth or wash his hair or take off his sweaty t-shirt and jeans. His brain is swimming. He’s starting to feel sick. And he can’t shake the thrum of adrenaline from arguing with Trey.

He lays there for a long time, eyes closed.

A little while later he hears Trey throwing up in the bathroom.

Matt ends up falling asleep on the floor by himself, wet boots still on his feet.

*

They spend the whole next day watching Hammerstein musicals and smoking weed.

Matt’s memories of the night are hazy. He remembers being at home, he remembers getting to the bar, and he remembers the show. Trey was dancing with some girls, and Eric was a good gay ally and held their shit.

“I totally blacked out,” Trey admits, elbow deep in a box of cereal. “How did we get home?”

That was definitely Eric. “Dude. No more mixing pills and booze.”

Trey snorts. 

*

On Trey’s actual birthday, Matt makes him a nice card.

He draws two of the kids from their video on the front, and writes HAPPY BIRTHDAY ASSHOLE in short, blocky letters underneath that. On the inside, he scrawls _TO TREY,_ and then draws a big hairy dick and balls, with _LOVE MATTY_ underneath it. As a last minute addition, he adds a big heart-shaped cum splatter coming out of the dick, too.

Trey is over at Jason’s for dinner, so Matt leaves it on the coffee table.

*

The next morning, Matt wakes up and the card is still there.

Trey must have spent the night over at Jason’s.

Matt picks the card up, folds it in half, and thinks about throwing it away.


	2. these and those

The campus bar does karaoke on Friday nights.

“It’s my _birthday_ , dude,” Trey says again, while jamming a foot into his boot.

Matt grimaces over from where he’s trying to fix the shot. Every time he licks his finger and dabs the construction paper, he gets coffee everywhere. He keeps touching it and it keeps getting worse.

But he licks his finger and stabs the mouth shape again anyway and tells Trey, “Your birthday was last week.”

Trey’s half into his jacket.

“It’ll be fun,” he promises.

Matt has been planning to go since the first time Trey asked him, but they both kind of like this thing they do, where Trey has to work to get Matt to give in, and Matt acts like it’s an inconvenience to do so.

“Are you leaving now?” Matt pushes his glasses back up his nose. “Give me like, five minutes.”

*

Eric and Jason have been here since happy hour; the empty pitcher on their table is proof.

“There they are,” Trey says when he spots them.

It’s so crowded, Matt has to follow Trey single file as they make their way across the floor, weaving through a sticky honeycomb of rickety bar tables. The house lights are already down, and servers are winding through the crowd, holding handfuls of beer bottles up by the neck.

“Yo!” Eric yells. “Over here!”

Matt laughs and squeezes into the seat next to him. “Hi, buddy. You’re drunk!”

“Oh yeah.” Eric turns to pat Matt’s upper arm affectionately. “I sure am.”

His little butty Eric. Matt laughs again and pats him back, because sometimes Eric catches him with his guard down and genuinely makes him smile. He settles in, unzipping his jacket, and eyes Trey. The way he greets Jason is not as warm as it usually is. Matt definitely notices. He tries not to, but first, he’s a nosy bitch, and second, try as he might, his internal compass is always pointing due Trey.

Jason already looks tipsy. Trey gives him a tight smile and pats the back of his hand where it rests on the table. Then he looks at Matt.

“Uhh.” Matt reaches for the little menu triangle. “Are we doing pitchers?”

That seems to be the group consensus, so when the server comes around, Matt asks for another round. In two weeks they’ll have $700 burning a hole in their pocket. In the meantime, they’ll live like kings. Damn hell ass kings.

“I’m gonna go put in some songs,” Trey announces, and then he’s gone, winding back through the crowd.

For the sake of making conversation, Matt bets, “REM.”

It’s a joke. Trey hates Michael Stipe. But no one else gets it.

“Well. I definitely fucked up,” Jason hiccups, ignoring Matt. He looks at Eric pointedly. “He’s still mad.”

Matt bites his tongue and wrestles with the instinctual need to add his two cents into the conversation. He’s white knuckling it already; it’s even harder to repress it when the conversation is about Trey. The only thing that keeps him from opening his mouth is that he’s sober.

“Well, maybe he’s not.” Eric is definitely trying to look on the bright side. “He seemed alright to me.”

Jason drains the bottom of his beer, and stubbornly replies, “I don’t think so.”

“Maybe he just needed some time to cool off,” Eric suggests.

Matt looks between the two of them skeptically, wondering what the fuck he missed. He and Trey were at Trey’s apartment all day, fucking around, working on the video. It’s almost done, and Trey definitely wasn’t copping attitude at Matt; in fact, they’d had a really good time.

“I doubt it,” Jason sulks.

The conversation abruptly ends there, because the house DJ picks up the mic. The whole bar rabbles as he screams WHAT’S UP WHAT’S UP WHAT’S UP BOULDERRRR and Matt cringes, tilting his ear into his shoulder as everyone claps.

A second later, the server comes back with their new pitcher. She sets down two clean glasses for Matt and Trey.

“THANKS,” Matt shouts over the DJ. He’s announcing the first performer, a drunk girl who is already on stage, holding the mic down at her hip and intermittently yelling to her friends in the very back and laughing hysterically.

The server takes the old pitcher, and as she disappears into the crowd, Trey comes out of it.

“I told the chick taking song requests that it was my birthday,” he announces, flopping into his chair and holding one hand against his chest as he burps. “She bought me a shot.”

Matt laughs. “Nice.”

*

They keep emptying the pitcher, and new pitchers keep coming their way.

Tonight’s song choices are all over the place. They sit through covers of 4 Non Blondes, Boyz II Men, Soundgarden, and a bunch of shitty country songs that Matt doesn’t recognize. Eric has to go up and do _Be Our Guest_ when he realizes Trey wrote his name in on the request list, which is super funny, and in the end, he does a respectable job.

Things are definitely tense between Trey and Jason. It gets worse as the night goes on; Matt keeps waiting for something to happen - for the tension to break, a smile.

He watches Trey sing _Ballroom Blitz_ by himself, and then goes outside for a cigarette.

It is not a surprise to Matt when Trey gets up and follows him out.

Trey’s mood has been on a steady downward spiral since they got here. He’s looking to bicker, and he keeps poking at Jason to get some relief, but it’s pretty obvious that whatever happened between them earlier has Jason on the defensive. It’s like watching a three car pile-up from the highway barrier.

Jason may not know how to argue right - but Matt does. And he isn’t afraid of poking at Trey to find out what’s going on. 

He edges down the side of the building, Trey on his heels.

“You wanna tell me what’s up?” Matt gets right to the point. He turns his back to the wind, which is howling down the alley they’re standing in, and lights his cigarette. 

Most of the smokers have congregated on the sidewalk at the front of the building, so he and Trey are alone.

“Not really,” Trey exhales, voice tight. He gives Matt a look. “I mean, it’s not exciting.”

Matt rolls his eyes and counters, “Try me.”

“Dude…” Trey crosses his arms, because it’s cold out here without a jacket. Matt is well aware his nipples are rock hard. “It’s stupid. We had an argument yesterday, and he got weird about it.”

They look at each other, and Matt rolls his tongue against the inside of his teeth. “Ah.”

“He said arguing is a sign of incompatibility.” Trey screws his face up and looks over at Matt as he asks, “Like we’re supposed to agree about everything all the time? Whatever, dude.”

Trey shakes his head and then dips down to light his cigarette against the wind.

“Weird line to draw in the sand,” Matt finally agrees. 

Snorting, Trey says, “Yeah,” then pauses and adds, “Now things are lame.”

Matt steps one foot out, hip angling towards Trey, and bumps the soles of their shoes together. He can’t find it within himself to say anything nice about Jason, but he can still let Trey know he’ll cape for him.

“Sorry Jason sucks,” he summarizes.

Trey snorts. “You’re smiling, dude.”

Like Matt can control the weather. He shrugs and takes another drag of his cigarette, and then they fall into a comfortable silence. All of a sudden something in the sky catches Trey’s attention, and he looks up, spinning around so he can see the strip of black sky above them.

Curious, Matt looks up, too. It takes him a second, then he says, “That is totally the big dipper.”

Inside the bar, someone starts trying to sing _Debaser._ The guy sounds drunk, which makes both of them laugh. Matt goes back to smoking his cigarette. The faster he smokes, the shorter he and Trey’s time spent alone together is, so he slows down.

“That was such a good show,” Trey reminisces. He looks down from the sky and at Matt instead. “I was so fucked up. You were being such a dick.”

Matt starts laughing. “Those fucking girls, man!”

“They were nice,” Trey grins. Matt is about to burn his fingers on the filter, so he gives up and tosses his butt into a pile of snow. It sizzles and sinks away.

He’s just drunk enough to comfortably talk about that night.

“I definitely blacked out, dude.” When Matt says that, Trey laughs again. They’ve kind of toed around this conversation already; Trey told him that he didn’t remember the whole night, either, but he might have just been trying to make Matt feel better. Things get dark about halfway through the show. “So if I said anything mean, take it as a compliment, I guess.”

Trey smiles at him. “Eric told me you were being an asshole to everyone in the car, but I don’t remember, either.”

“What? What a bitch!” Matt is outraged. “What did he say?”

Now they’re just standing in the snow having a conversation. Trey says, “He told me you got mad after I called you cute.”

Oh, fuck. Matt stares at Trey, gobsmacked. He does remember that. It’s foggy, and he doesn’t know how he got into the cab, or what happened once he got out, but he totally remembers getting mad at Trey.

“No you did not,” he says, immediately pissed off again.

Trey shrugs. “Eric says I did.”

“No - you said _it’s_ cute,” Matt specifies. “That’s different.”

Trey gets all scandalized. “You do remember!”

“Not really!” It’s like putting a puzzle together without being able to see what the picture is. “Only because you reminded me.”

They stare at each other as Trey tries to figure out if he’s lying.

“Well, whatever dude,” he shrugs, turning around. They walk back down the length of the building together, Matt behind Trey. Over one shoulder, Trey nonchalantly says, “I do think you’re cute.”

Matt feels his heart drop down to his asshole.

*

A few hours later, the DJ announces last call.

Matt can very much feel that it’s the end of the night. He flips over his bill when the server sets it face down in front of him, and leans to the side to get his wallet out of his back pocket.

“I’m not leaving,” Jason tells everyone for the second time, eyes closed.

He’s a sloppy drunk. Matt saw it happening earlier, when he spilled his last shot all down the front of his shirt, and now here he is, sufficiently shitfaced. Matt shakes his head and counts his tab out of the dollar bills folded into his wallet.

“It’s last call.” Trey throws back the bottom of his beer and then stands up, jacket already on. He holds one hand out for Jason, and then Matt stands up, too. “Let’s go, dude.”

The girl on stage is halfway through her drunken rendition of _Waterfalls._

“No.” Jason knocks away Trey’s hand. “I’m not done.”

Matt sees it, and can’t help butting in. “You seem pretty done to me, dude.”

“Mind your own business,” Jason says, scowling in Matt’s direction.

That taps Matt square on the ‘fuck you’ button. Even sober, he would have something very pointed to say to that. He narrows his eyes and tells Jason, “I know we don’t know each other very well, but I’m never gonna do that, buddy, and you can count on it.” For emphasis, he crumples his receipt up and throws it across the table. “Get fucked.”

“Alright,” Trey says loudly, trying to keep the peace.

Eric comes back to the table, still wiping his wet hands off on his jeans.

“There’s no paper towel left in the bathroom, fellas,” he starts to say, but then seems to immediately pick up on the tension. Jason drains his beer, and Eric looks between all three of them. “Wait, what’s going on?”

Matt takes the liberty of answering for the group. “Jason is being a little faggot,” he says.

“Oh god.” Trey steeples one hand over his face.

Honestly, this is the most fun Matt has ever had with Jason. He’s more endearing now that Matt has discovered he’s a terrible, angry drunk.

“What did you say to me?” Jason yells. He’s loud enough that Matt can hear him over _Waterfalls_ and standing five feet away. 

When Matt doesn’t immediately answer, Jason shoves the table. An empty falls over and rolls against the tip pile.

“I said you’re a little faggot,” Matt says clearly. The table beside them has been packed with a big group all night, and a few of the people sitting on their side start looking over, eyeing Matt and Jason. “Because you’re acting like a _little fucking faggot_.”

Eric pulls at the inside of Matt’s arm. Matt knocks it away. Eric tries to get him to leave by saying, “Come on, buddy, let’s get out of here.”

The girl on stage finishes her song, and hands the microphone back to the emcee.

Jason tells Matt, “Say it again.”

“Fag,” Matt shrugs, with a capital F.

He hasn’t even finished saying the word when Jason launches himself over the table. It skids loudly against the floor, sound cutting through the entire bar. Beer bottles and glasses fall over and roll off the table, landing on the ground in a series of pops and explosions.

The next girl on stage starts belting her way through the first verse of _It’s All Coming Back to Me Now_ as he and Jason start hitting each other. Matt gets a punch in, and then Jason hits him right in the fucking ear.

It takes about 15 seconds for security to come and throw them out.

Matt hits the snowy concrete first. He hears Eric running out after him, and the muffled sound of Jason still yelling and fighting with security inside the bar. Matt groans and flops over onto his back, rolling to the side as he coughs and looks up at the sky. 

Same stars he was looking at earlier in the night, except now they’re spinning.

“Are you okay?” Eric asks from somewhere. “Jeez, dude, you’re bleeding.”

Matt makes a noise that sounds like UHG and pushes himself up onto one elbow so he can spit into the snow. Eric squats down beside him and raises his eyebrows.

“Sorry, butty,” Matt coughs. The look on Eric’s face makes him feel bad.

Eric helps him up off the floor by bracing Matt’s shoe with both his feet, and yanking him up by the arm. When Matt pops up, he realizes his nose is bleeding. He wipes it with the sleeve of his jacket and spits again. He’s a little dizzy.

Then Jason comes out of nowhere and takes another swing at him.

“Fuck you,” Matt snaps, shoving his arm out of the way.

Jason has tunnel vision. He makes a grab for Matt again, but this time Trey holds him back. He launches forward even as Trey drags him off his feet.

“You son of a bitch,” he yells, trying to throw Trey’s weight.

Matt grimaces. “Eat my ass.”

The bouncer is still watching them, so Matt turns, pausing to spit more blood into the snow before he follows Eric down the icy sidewalk. When they get to the end of the block, he looks back at Trey. Trey is trying to wrangle Jason into a cab.

“What was that about?” Eric asks, annoyed.

Matt sucks his teeth to make sure they’re all there. “He was being a little bitch.”

“You can’t act like an asshole just because-” Eric cuts himself off. He shakes his head, gets frustrated, and then stops and points his finger at Matt. “You can’t treat people like that because of Trey.”

Bringing Trey into it digs right into Matt’s ribs. He grimaces and smacks Eric’s finger away.

“Shut the fuck up, Eric,” he grumbles. He doesn’t want to hear it.

Eric is standing his ground. “No,” he says. “Stop being mean to people.”

“You better ask for something I can actually do,” Matt snaps back.

In his wildest fantasies, he and Trey walk home together at the end of the night, blow up the air mattress, and get a good night’s sleep.

“You don’t think anyone is good enough for you except for Trey,” Eric continues, incising a methodical, precise cut. Matt spits into the snow again. His hands are still jittery from the adrenaline. “Grow up.”

He doesn’t give Matt a chance to reply. He turns and continues walking, boots crunching angrily in the snow.

*

Trey is gone for a whole day after that.

In the morning, Matt wakes up with a perfectly average hangover, and sits on the couch by himself for a while. Last night sucked, but felt inevitable. At least Jason didn’t break his nose. He did wake up with a black eye, though. And Eric calling him out still stings more than any of the bruises do.

Matt is smoking weed on the roof by himself when Trey gets back later that night. It’s been over 24 hours since they got kicked out of the bar - when Matt hears the door unlock, he checks his watch, and it’s 2AM.

It’s only a minute before Trey comes climbing through the window.

“Hey dude,” he says.

His shoe comes through the window first, and then one long leg, and his thigh, and hip, and arm.

“Hey,” Matt belatedly replies, still watching.

Trey edges over, trying not to slip on the icy shingles, and plops down beside Matt. He hands over the bag of chips he came through the window with and says, “Nice shiner.”

“Listen, man.” Matt frowns and rests his elbows on his bent knees. Below them, in the back alley, a cat hops up onto the dumpster ledge and disappears around the corner. “I never say this, but I’m sorry for ruining last night.”

Trey snorts. “You didn’t ruin anything.”

“Well, you were right,” Matt continues anyway. “I am kind of mean.”

His brand new pack of Marlboros is sitting on the roof between them; Trey picks it up and steals one.

“Kind of?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

Matt rolls his eyes. “I’m trying to apologize, asshole,” he says, and Trey laughs.

“Thanks, Matty.” Trey sticks a cigarette between his lips and talks around it. “Jason and I broke up.”

There’s a moment of silence, and then Matt starts laughing. He doesn’t even feel like a dick about it. Trey makes an ‘EHY!’ noise, smoke puffing out of his nose, and loudly grabs the chip bag.

“Dude.” Matt takes the chips back. “I mean, I kind of knew you would.”

Trey flicks his cigarette in Matt’s direction and smiles. “You’re such a prick.”

That makes Matt laugh again, because he loves it when Trey calls him names. He shrugs and looks down to brush the ash Trey flicked at him off the belly fold of his sweatshirt.

“I’m sorry, man.” He even sounds a little apologetic. “That’s sucky.”

Trey takes a long drag, and shrugs. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“That’s nice and apathetic.” Matt eats another chip.

He watches as Trey stretches forward to ash his cigarette in the gutter. “He was a dick to me. And he gave you a black eye.”

“Yeah.” That pretty much sums it up.

As Trey sits back, he glances over at Matt. Then they look right at each other, and it’s like there’s a glitch in the system. The stars fall out of the sky and cars crash on the I-70. Matt forgets how to swallow. His toes curl in his shoes, and the cat in the dumpster hisses.

“Dude…” Trey starts, trailing off like he’s about to say something important.

Matt can sense what’s coming. His eyebrows jerk into his hairline, all of the stars float back up into the sky, and the cat darts away.

“I’m stoned and weird.” He’s already getting up. “Let’s not do this.”

He picks up the burnt end of his j and ignores Trey as he says, “Dude.”

Matt can’t talk about this right now. He leaves Trey alone on the roof.

Inside Trey’s apartment, Matt feels around on top of the fridge, and stashes his joint back inside the cookie tin Trey keeps up there. Eric was right, and Matt didn’t even realize it.

 _Fuck_ , he thinks to himself.

He’s fiddling around with the last shot they’ve been working on when Trey climbs back through the window.

“We need to finish that thing so we can get the fuck out of here,” he says grumpily.

Matt frowns down at the key frame. 

“It’s $700. That isn’t even rent and a shitty car.” Then he looks back at Trey over his shoulder and jokes, “You better keep working on that music degree.”

Trey flops down on the couch, rubs his face, and sighs. “Gotta start somewhere.”

Even though Matt’s kneejerk reaction is to make a joke - guess you better find a sweet street corner to peddle your ass on then, dude - he catches himself before he says it. It’s pretty obvious Trey is bummed and burnt out. Matt considers his options, and then goes over to where his bag is sitting on the floor in the kitchen.

He digs around the inside pocket and finds exactly what he was looking for.

“This is the best I can do today,” he says, flopping into the couch next to Trey. He hands over the birthday card he made the other day. “Give me a couple years.”

Trey gives him a weird look and then takes the folded up card.

He unfolds it in a way that suggests he’s waiting to get hit with the punchline. Matt raises his eyebrows when Trey gives him another look, and then smiles when Trey realizes what it is, and laughs.

“Thanks, dude,” Trey says softly. His gaze flicks back and forth over the inside of the card. “Great use of cum.”

Matt laughs, and then it gets quiet again as Trey keeps looking at the card.

“I really am sorry about Jason,” Matt finally admits.

He remembers how he felt that morning, after he woke up and saw the card still sitting on the coffee table. There was something so dark and ugly that lived inside of him, and was directly related to the way he felt about Trey. It grew horns and got bigger and bigger and harder and harder to kill. It was why he took the card back.

And sometimes Matt would give anything to turn that part of himself off.

“Thanks, Matty.” Trey looks up from the card and smiles.

Matt swallows and smiles back. He knows why he’s never liked any of the people Trey has dated. He knows why he turned down the guy at the coffee shop that asked him out. He knows why he acts like an asshole when he gets his feelings hurt. He knows that Trey is going to find some new guy to date. 

And Matt knows he can’t do the same. He doesn’t date people like Trey does, because he can’t find anyone smart enough, or funny enough, or interested in the same things he’s interested in.

“No problem, dude,” he says, voice rough.

*

Since Matt is already on his apology tour, he hangs out with Eric the next day.

“Hey, dude. I’m your mom,” he cackles, pulling a shitty Babylon 5 mask off the rack and holding it up in front of his face.

They’re at K-Mart, because Eric has been awkwardly flirting with the girl who makes sandwiches at Subway for a month. Today Matt found out that her and her friends are throwing a Halloween kegger on Friday, and Eric has been invited.

“Don’t be mean to my mom!” Eric tells him.

Even though Matt isn’t into girls or keggers, he and Trey have agreed to attend as moral fuck support.

“They stole Trey’s look,” Matt jokes, as they walk by a rack of Disney princess costumes and easter colored candy buckets. It’s kind of a dated joke anyway, since Trey already did drag for Halloween last year. “Dude. Jasmine.”

Eric follows Matt down the cramped Halloween aisle. “Where is Trey, anyhow?”

“He dumped Jason, so now he’s atoning.”

When Matt left Trey’s apartment earlier, Trey had been home and in the middle of writing a term paper, so the atonement thing is mostly a joke. 

“Is he really?” Eric asks, surprised.

They both start digging through a rack of superhero costumes. Matt snorts. “No.”

“Oh.” Eric frowns.

Matt shoves a chunk of Batman hangers to the side, and tugs out a full Spiderman body suit fantasy. He squints over at Eric and asks, “What?”

“I dunno,” Eric shrugs. “I guess I’m not surprised about Jason.”

This might be a little tight, but Matt can make it work. He sticks an arm in.

“Yeah, sorry dude. You’ll have to get a new best friend,” he says, distracted.

Eric frowns at him and gets all grumpy. “I was just trying to be nice.”

“I know, buddy.” Matt jams the hanger back in the rack, and starts digging around for an XL instead. “Give Trey a month.”

It might not even take that long. Give Trey two sticks and he’d figure out a way to fuck them. If Matt goes by historical data, he’d probably put some cash on Trey walking out of the Halloween kegger with at least a phone number.

“I did kinda see it coming,” Eric sighs. “I can’t believe you guys got in a fight.”

There’s one XL left. Matt untangles it from the spiderweb of hangers in the rack, and holds it up to his chest. The arms on this one are longer, but the torso will be a gamble. Good luck to his dick and calves. He raises his eyebrows at Eric.

“I already told Trey ‘sorry’ about that,” he says, for the record.

Just your friendly neighborhood Spiderman.

“You definitely shouldn’t have called Jason those names,” Eric continues, frowning.

Matt frowns back. “Dude! I know.”

“I bet Trey was awful mad you got us all banned from karaoke.” Eric picks up a plastic Animaniacs mask. He’s right - if Trey is going to hold a grudge about anything, it’s going to be over the personal loss of _Crocodile Rock_. “I’m sure he’ll forgive you, though.”

He hooks the Animaniacs mask back on the wall.

“Thanks, buddy.” Matt looks down at the costume in his hands, and rubs his thumb along the inside netting of the eye hole. The conversation he and Trey had the night after the fight was practically business as usual. He shrugs and admits, “Honestly, he didn’t seem that mad.”

Eric pulls down a NASA helmet next. “He wasn’t mad last time, either.”

It’s a vague enough reference that Matt can take the out Eric is giving him without feeling bad about it. Still, he knows exactly what Eric is pointing at. He’s doing it with the same jagged precision he stuck into Matt like a fish hook that night out in the snow. 

If the demise of Trey’s relationships were a game of Clue, the murderer is always Matt, and Matt is always in the conservatory with the candlestick.

And Matt knows it. So he takes the out, the L. The path of least resistance.

“What about this?” he asks, holding up a Raggedy Andy costume, and changing the subject.

*

They finish the final transfer of the tape the day of the party.

It is, no doubt, the most satisfying moment of Matt’s semester so far.

Matt is halfway into his Spiderman costume, and Trey is standing beside him, dressed up like the Lone Ranger. They both stare down at the noisy tape reel as the film spins. They just have to watch the final copy back, and mail everything out.

“Dude,” Trey says with a smile. He adjusts the bandana knot at his throat. “I’m so happy.”

Honestly, Matt is too. They grin at each other and take celebratory shots of Fireball.

*

Eric meets them downstairs an hour later.

“PLEASE don’t get into a fight tonight,” he begs. “Please, guys.”

Trey cackles. “Matt Stone, cause a scene?”

The house party is only ten minutes away, so they’re walking. Matt stays quiet and smokes his cigarette through his Spiderman mouth hole. He can’t even tell them to shut the fuck up, because they’re right.

“Fuck you guys,” he says anyway.

Trey grins over at him.

“I really, really want to spend time with this girl tonight,” Eric earnestly continues, walking up ahead on the sidewalk and swinging his astronaut helmet around. “Maybe she’ll let me kiss her.”

Matt steps down into the gutter to make room for an oncoming group of late night trick or treaters.

“You got this, man,” Trey tells Eric, reaching forward to pat him on the shoulder.

Taking out his cigarettes, Matt keeps walking in the road, leaving Trey a couple inches taller than him for the first time in his life.

“She’ll totally bone you, butty,” he agrees.

Eric shakes his head. “I don’t want to bone her, I just want to kiss her.”

“Aww,” Matt and Trey say together.

The house is packed and loud, even from down on the sidewalk. Matt flicks his cigarette butt into the street and follows Trey up the wooden stairs, dipping under spider webs and paper ghosts twisted out of toilet paper.

“She told me she’d be in the kitchen,” Eric says confidently, stepping through the open door and into the foyer. _Monster Mash_ is playing from somewhere.

As Matt follows the group, he walks close enough to Trey that he’s almost stepping on the heels of his shitty cowboy boots. These gaps in-between shouldering other people out of Trey’s orbit are short but bright, and Matt takes every opportunity he gets when he can spend time in Trey’s bubble without feeling the residual guilt.

Eric’s crush is right where she said she’d be. She’s dressed up like Animal from the Muppets, and Matt practically sees the heart shapes bubble out of Eric’s eyes when he spots her.

“These are my friends,” Eric tells her after a minute of talking. “Matt and Trey.”

She seems cute and normal enough. They make smalltalk for a minute, then she points out that all the booze is in the other room, and Matt takes that as an opportunity to dip.

“I like her,” Trey says as they walk back down the hallway, through the belly of the house.

 _Dancing Queen_ is now rattling the picture frames off the walls. Matt reaches forward and pulls Trey’s hat off the back of his head, just to be annoying. When he lets it go, it falls back and chokes him.

Trey laughs and half-turns to make eye contact with Matt as they walk. If Trey keeps looking at him like that, Matt is gonna follow him around all night.

In the living room, they find an island of booze in a sea of dancing people.

“Well, let’s make some friends,” Matt yells sarcastically, snagging two beers.

*

Matt is trying to be good.

He is really, really trying to be good, and not drink too much, and not go around starting arguments for fun. For his little butty, he stays on his best behavior, and he doesn’t make fun of any of Eric’s new friends, even though they like listening to Mariah Carey. But Trey keeps doing shots with him, and a couple hours in, they’re drunk.

“Let’s go smoke,” Trey says, delicately fixing his eye mask.

He’s such a little homo it warms Matt’s heart. He doesn’t know anyone else like Trey.

“Sure.” He drains the end of his beer and hides the bottle in a potted plant. “Let’s go.”

They check the kitchen first, but that’s a quick, hard “no” due to the beer pong championship currently happening on the deck. Trey makes a fart noise with his mouth and u-turns back into the hallway. There are other places they can check out.

Matt intends to follow Trey, but someone in the beer pong crowd catches his eye. One of the guys cheering on the red cup team looks familiar… and dude, Matt thinks to himself, that’s the Broncos guy who asked him out on a date.

He realizes it the second they accidentally make eye contact from opposite sides of the room. Matt quickly snaps his gaze away and picks up the pace to catch up with Trey.

“This has gotta be something,” Trey says, opening up a closed door.

It’s a garage, which is a thousand times better than standing outside in the snow.

Trey closes the door behind Matt as they step down into the concrete room, sealing the thumping bass of the party back on the other side of the wall. The faraway pulse of _Thriller_ vibrates the shitty wood panelling.

“Dude,” Matt says. He yanks his Spiderman hood off, and sticks it into the modest butt pocket of his onesie. “That was totally weird.”

Cigarette already in his mouth, Trey glances up and asks, “Huh?”

“Broncos dude was in the kitchen.” His hair feels flat, so Matt tries to brush it up a little with his fingers. “And he totally saw me.”

Trey snorts. “You should have gone for it, man.”

“Dude.” Matt makes a face. “Not my type.”

A little drunk, Trey squints at him and asks, “What is your type, exactly?”

“I dunno,” Matt shrugs and sticks a cigarette in his mouth. “Unattainable, for starters.”

Trey isn’t buying it. He gives Matt a sour look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What, do you want like, the definition, or…” Matt trails off.

The conversation rolls to an uneasy stop, and they stare at each other instead. _You’re being such a little bitch right now. Fuck you, dude. Are you going to avoid this conversation forever? If I can try long enough, yeah, that’s the plan. God you’re so fucking annoying._ Matt feels his heart ratchet up into his throat.

“I want you to tell me what you want,” Trey finally says, voice flat. There’s no intonation behind his words. “Stop fucking around, Matt.”

Matt freezes. He doesn’t have anything funny or mean to say to that. Trey looks fed up.

“I, uh.” His eyebrows knot, and he looks down at the cigarette in his hand. His fingers aren’t shaking - they’re steadily curled around the end of his cigarette - but he can feel the way his body is steeped in adrenaline. Fight or flight? Matt has always stuck around and opened his mouth. He jerks his gaze up to look at Trey, and blurts, “Dude, this total fag who likes to write musicals, and argue with me about anything that ever happened. Answers to pig fucker.”

His answer catches Trey off guard. His face goes completely blank, and then he laughs.

“That’s specific,” he grins, sunshine through a pinhole. “And sounds familiar.”

Then Matt laughs, sudden and loud. All of the tension breaks and floats away like bubbles, and he feels out of breath with relief as he admits, “I would follow him around like a dog if he let me.”

There is no one else on earth that gets him like Trey does.

“Dude, I thought you weren’t interested,” Trey admits, still smiling.

Matt shrugs. “You’re always with someone.”

It takes Matt longer to decide on what to eat for dinner than it does for Trey to find a new guy to date. Trey could walk down the street, and a naked man would fall out of a tall building and land on him like a piano. Dick up.

“I guess it doesn’t matter anymore, but you were what Jason and I were arguing about,” Trey admits, letting the cat out of the bag. “Eric said you guys were jealous of each other.”

Matt snorts. “I wasn’t jealous,” which is true. “I was just, you know.” He pauses and they stare at each other blankly while Matt thinks. “Unimpressed.” Trey rolls his eyes and butts his cigarette out on the floor. “Fuck you, man. That guy was a total prick.”

“He wasn’t great,” Trey agrees, voice flat.

They look at each other again. Every time Matt has drawn a line in the dirt between them, it’s been deliberate; the choice to not get hurt. Since the day they met, Matt has been careful to keep it that way, and if they do this, all of that work goes away. Things will be different, forever, in a way neither of them will be able to take back.

And you can’t pave over damage with good intentions.

“Alright.” He butts his cigarette out. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

Trey nods, but he has that look on his face like he’s got something else to say about it. If they’re going to argue, it’s going to have to wait until they get outside - Matt meant it when he promised Eric they wouldn’t ruin his night. Matt steps up onto the rickety little wooden stair that leads back into the house, and turns around to-

“Dude-” he yelps, stumbling back off the step as Trey yanks him down by the front of his costume.

Matt is confused, and then Trey pulls his head down and kisses him on the mouth.

It’s paralyzing.

“Fuck,” Trey pants after a second, pulling back.

All Matt can do is stare down at him. He’s a little out of breath, and his hands are both twisted into the shoulder seams of Trey’s cowboy button down.

“Alright, we gotta get out of here,” Matt decides, voice rough. As an afterthought, he looks at Trey’s face and adds, “And take your stupid mask off.”

Trey laughs, and then they’re kissing again. This one is different, it’s intense, and it gets out of hand quickly, and if they don’t stop dicking around, they’re going to fuck each other right here.

“Hey,” Trey complains, pouting when Matt pulls back.

Matt wipes his mouth. “We have to leave,” he says. “Now, dude.”

Before they can argue about it, Matt turns back around, opens the basement door, and walks back into the house. The hallway is totally empty, but the party is still raging on the other side of the wall. Matt feels short of breath and strung out as he lurches along, walking bow-legged to accommodate his half-hard dick.

“We should-” he starts to say, but gets cut off.

Then he staggers to the side as Trey yanks him through an open doorway.

“Sorry,” Trey apologizes into his face, banging Matt back against the door. He flips the light on and yanks the mask off his face. “I can’t walk home with a boner, dude.”

Matt laughs as Trey starts kissing him again. As Trey feels him up through his stupid costume, Matt reaches behind his back, and twists the lock on the bathroom door. 

Then he pushes Trey forward until they both bump into the opposite counter.

“The music is loud,” Trey says into Matt’s mouth, already pulling the top half of Matt’s costume down over his shoulders. “Nobody can hear us.”

Matt reaches up and undoes the strap of Trey’s hat before he knocks it off again.

“I’ll eat you out later,” he counters. Both of his hands are wrapped around Trey’s waist, which makes it easy to turn him around. Matt looks at their reflection over Trey’s shoulder and feels a swell of endorphins pop like a piece of bubblegum in his chest. It’s such a crazy feeling, it makes him laugh and add, “I’ll do whatever you want.”

Trey grins at him in the mirror, and then turns his head as Matt leans over his shoulder for another wet kiss.

“I can’t believe I’m fucking you dressed like a gay cowboy,” Matt continues.

Laughing, Trey holds Matt’s face over his shoulder with one hand on the back of his head, and says, “When it’s right, it’s right.”

Then someone pounds on the door, startling them both.

“IT’S BUSY,” Matt yells, hands sliding up underneath Trey’s shirt. Whoever is on the other side of the door yells something back, but it’s distorted by the bass and the thickness of the door. Matt adds a succinct, “FUCK OFF.”

They both wait for a second, staring at each other in the mirror, but there’s no reply.

“Dude,” Trey mouths. Matt leans forward, pressing his bare chest against Trey’s back, and winds one arm around his stomach, the other across his shoulders. Trey groans and tilts his head back until it bumps against Matt’s clavicle. “Fuck.”

Matt loosens his cobra grip and feels Trey up on his way down to helping Trey undo his jeans. Trey gets his belt unbuckled, and his pants unzipped, and then Matt pushes them down his hips and over his ass. He steps close again, and looks down at Trey’s ass in his hands.

When Matt looks back up and over Trey’s shoulder, Trey is staring at him in the mirror.

It’s weird to get what you really want.

Matt pushes his costume the rest of the way down, until it’s all shoved around his thighs, and jerks off a little bit. When he steps back in close to Trey, his dick bumps against him, and he groans.

“Fuck, your dick is huge,” Trey swears, looking back over his shoulder.

Matt thrusts forward so his pelvis bangs against Trey’s ass. “Dude. It’s proportional.”

“You’re gonna fuck me in half,” Trey counters. Matt spits in his hand and takes a half step back, putting just enough space between them so he can jerk himself off a little more with his spit cum combo.

Then he steps back in, and presses himself up onto his toes to get at the right angle.

“You’re a big boy.” He lines his dick up. “You can take it.”

He starts pressing in, and both of them groan, their combined weight dropping forward onto the sink. Trey slumps over the counter, and Matt crumples forward, letting his forehead rest against Trey’s hunched shoulders. Fuck. He’s already breathing quick and shallow, on the knife edge of coming. He clenches his teeth and presses forward slowly, still up on his toes to give Trey a little slack.

When he’s all the way in, Trey squirms around, shaking, totally strung out on endorphins.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Matt,” he pants, sounding a little mad about all the dick.

Matt presses his face flat into the middle of Trey’s back, trying to catch his breath, and then straightens up, leaning his hips back as he takes his dick out again. He sucks all the spit in his mouth onto his tongue, and then tilts down, aiming for his dick. When he spits, it hits right where it’s supposed to, and Trey feels it. He groans, and Matt sees the forearm he’s using to hold himself up flex where it’s resting along the sink.

He sinks in again, slowly, but it’s easier this time. Then he lets go of Trey’s hips, and rests both hands on his shoulders, fingers curling forward over the front of his collarbones.

“Good?” he asks, as Trey half stands up, back still arched.

They look at each other in the mirror. Trey’s hair is all fucked up, hat hair and sex hair combined, and his eyes are glassy.

“Fuck you, dude,” he pants, and then grins, and Matt laughs.

Matt squeezes his shoulders and says, “Alright,” and then leans back, hips still poured forward, and starts fucking. 

Normally Matt is pretty good at working up to a frantic pace, but with Trey, he gets there fast. He goes from pressing his weight forward into nice, solid thrusts, to being hunched over with his sweaty face in-between Trey’s shoulder blades as he recklessly nails away.

Trey isn’t even jerking off. He’s just holding onto his dick and making little noises.

“Matt, I’m gonna come,” he blurts. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

He feels Trey’s stomach muscles start to contract, flexing and releasing, and then his pelvic muscles tense and tremble and spasm, so Matt keeps fucking, even when it gets tight. Trey can’t even get a full breath in, and he’s up on his tip toes as he hangs onto the side of the sink and tries to crawl up the tiles.

When Trey comes, Matt pushes in deep and stays there so Trey can do it on his dick.

“Fuck, Trey, dude. Fuck,” Matt babbles quietly, sinking his fingers into the sweaty hair at the nape of Trey’s neck.

Trey is still jerking himself off, abruptly starting and stopping, knee banging against the front of the counter. Matt wraps both his arms around Trey’s middle and starts moving again, fucking with the intent to come this time.

It happens fast even though it feels like he’s been hanging on the ledge forever. He comes so hard it’s painful, and his body can’t decide whether to fuck or stop. He keeps sinking into Trey’s ass, and then all of his muscles clench up, and he comes a little more, and freezes, and all of a sudden he has to fuck again. So he thrusts in and out recklessly, until it hurts, and he has to stop.

On the last one, he sinks all the way into Trey, and then flops over his back, slumping them both over the sink edge.

“Fuck,” Trey pants, still out of breath.

Matt is right there with him. He’s breathing so hard he can feel the way his rib cage is expanding and pressing against Trey’s back. He brings his hands up and rests them on Trey’s flanks as he tries to get his breathing back under control.

The party is still raging outside the door, down the hall.

Matt rolls his gross, sweaty forehead against Trey’s shoulder, and then presses a kiss there as he reaches down and pulls his dick out.

“I’m jealous of anyone who gets a second of your time,” he admits, heart rate still somewhere up around his ears. His voice is hoarse and for a second he doesn’t even know if Trey heard him.

Trey turns around and pulls Matt into another kiss.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here, Matty,” he says quietly, tugging Matt’s costume back up over his hips.

*

The next day is November 1st.

In the morning, they watch the final tape in all its finished, dubbed glory, hungover and sitting together on Trey’s couch.

They slept on the shitty air mattress after getting home from the party last night, so Matt is a little stiff. But it was a good, good sleep.

“Well, I would say that’s done,” he yawns, watching as Trey gets up to eject the VHS and put it in the bubble mailer they have to drop in the mailbox by the end of the day. The only thing Trey is wearing is his underwear. Matt stretches one arm up into the air and adds a relieved, “Fuck, dude.”

Trey slides the tape back into its case, and tosses it over to Matt.

“Let’s get pizza and drop that fucker in the mailbox,” he says.

Matt raises his eyebrows and twists one arm back, blindly feeling around for the yellow padded envelope he just painstakingly wrote the mailing address out on. He finds it wedged between the couch cushions.

As he’s pressing the sticky flap down, Trey steps close and kicks his ankle.

“Get fucked,” he laughs, trying to move his foot around, and knock Trey over first.

*

we get some rules to follow  
that and this  
these and those  
no one knows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _matty’s eating trey’s ass mix -_  
>  we’re going to be friends - the white stripes  
> one day - sharon von etten  
> bubble and star - treble charger  
> praise you - fatboy slim  
> lovefool - the cardigans  
> no one knows - queens of the stone age
> 
> *
> 
> That's it! Thank you so much for commenting on the first part. If you enjoyed, let me know <3
> 
> Also, I just wanted to say that this is super NOT a realistic portrayal of being gay in the 90s, especially in a state like Colorado. It would have been a much longer and complicated story!!


End file.
